1970 in science

• February 11 – The Ohsumi satellite is launched, making Japan the fourth country to launch a satellite into orbit.
• March 31 – The Explorer 1 satellite reenters the Earth's atmosphere after 12 years in orbit.
• April 11 – The Apollo 13 space mission is launched, but has to be aborted on April 13.
• April 17 – Apollo 13 returns safely to Earth.
• June 1 – Soyuz 9, a two-man spacecraft, is launched from the Soviet Union for an orbital flight of nearly 18 days, an endurance record at this time.
• August 31 – Solar eclipse of August 31, 1970: An annular solar eclipse is visible in Oceania, and is the 14th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 144.
• September 20 – Luna 16 lands on the Moon and lifts off the next day with samples, landing back on Earth September 24.
• October 20 – The Zond 8 lunar orbiter is launched by the Soviet Union.
• November 17 – Lunokhod 1, the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world, lands on Mare Imbrium on the Moon after being released by the orbiting Luna 17 spacecraft.
• December 15 – Venera 7 lands on Venus and becomes the first spacecraft to transmit data from another planet successfully (launched August 17).

• August – Songs of the Humpback Whale, produced by Roger Payne, is released, publicly demonstrating whale vocalization for the first time and becoming influential in public support for whale conservation.{{cite news|last=McLellan|first=Joseph|title=It's a Whale of a Song|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1978/12/26/its-a-whale-of-a-song/f3abd074-8281-488b-a11a-3f7bea81080b/|access-date=2022-11-28|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=1977-12-26}}{{cite web|last=Andersen|first=Kurt|title=How Pop Music Helped Save the Whales|url=http://www.studio360.org/story/how-pop-music-helped-save-the-whales/|website=Studio 360|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150110135754/http://www.studio360.org/story/how-pop-music-helped-save-the-whales/|access-date=2022-08-03|archive-date=2015-01-10}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/essays/nature_s-greatest-hit_the-old-and-new-songs-of-the-humpback-whale|title=Nature's greatest hit: The old and new songs of the humpback whale|first=David|last=Rothenberg|website=The Wire}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/06/the-songs-that-saved-the-whales|title='It always hits me hard': how a haunting album helped save the whales|first=Tim|last=Lewis|newspaper=The Observer|date=2020-12-06|location=London|via=www.theguardian.com}}
• The Parc naturel régional de Camargue is established in the south of France.

• August – Ulrich K. Laemmli's refinement of the SDS-PAGE method is published.{{cite journal|author=Laemmli, U. K.|title=Cleavage of structural proteins during the assembly of the head of bacteriophage T4|journal=Nature|volume=227|issue=5259|pages=680–685|date=1970|pmid=5432063|doi=10.1038/227680a0|bibcode=1970Natur.227..680L|s2cid=3105149}}

• January 1 – Unix time begins at 00:00:00 UTC.
• June – The Datapoint 2200 is announced by the Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC).
• June–August – The programming language FLOW is devised by Jef Raskin.
• November 17 – The first United States patent for the computer mouse is issued to Douglas Engelbart.{{US patent |3541541}}.
• Bomber by Len Deighton, the first novel written on a word processor (the IBM MT/ST), is published in England.{{cite web|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2013/03/len_deighton_s_bomber_the_first_book_ever_written_on_a_word_processor.single.html|title=The Book-Writing Machine: What was the first novel ever written on a word processor?|work=Slate|date=2013-03-01|accessdate=2016-02-21|last=Kirschenbaum|first=Matthew}}
• The first Pascal compiler is released by Niklaus Wirth.{{cite book | chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/10722581_1 | doi=10.1007/10722581_1 | chapter=The Development of Procedural Programming Languages Personal Contributions and Perspectives | title=Modular Programming Languages | series=Lecture Notes in Computer Science | year=2000 | last1=Wirth | first1=Niklaus | volume=1897 | pages=1–10 | isbn=978-3-540-67958-5 }}
• The Xerox PARC computer laboratory is opened in Palo Alto, California.

• January 4 – The Tonghai earthquake (7.1 {{M|w}}) occurs in Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, killing an estimated 14,621 and injuring 26,783.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}
• May 24 – Drilling on the Kola Superdeep Borehole begins on the Kola Peninsula of Russia.

• Conway's Game of Life is devised by John Horton Conway.{{cite magazine|last=Gardner|first=Martin|authorlink=Martin Gardner|title=Mathematical Games – The fantastic combinations of John Conway's new solitaire game "life"|volume=223|work=Scientific American|date=October 1970|pages=[https://archive.org/details/ahaahainsight00gard/page/120 120–123]|url=https://archive.org/details/ahaahainsight00gard/page/120|accessdate=2011-06-26|isbn=0-89454-001-7|url-access=registration}}
• Kurt Gödel's ontological proof of the existence of God is circulated.{{cite book|first=John W. Jr.|last=Dawson|title=Logical Dilemmas: The Life and Work of Kurt Godel|publisher=A. K. Peters Ltd|location=Wellesley, Mass.|year=1997|isbn=1-56881-025-3}}

• The Dubowitz Score for estimating the gestational age of babies is published by Lilly and Victor Dubowitz.{{cite news|last=Mercuri|first=Eugenio|date=2016-05-08|title=Lilly Dubowitz obituary|url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/may/08/lilly-dubowitz-obituary|work=The Guardian|location=London|accessdate=2020-06-24}}
• The Exeter hip replacement stem is first implanted at the Princess Elizabeth Orthopaedic Hospital in Exeter, England.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/20/robin-ling-obituary|title=Robin Ling obituary|work=The Guardian|location=London|date=2017-10-20|first=A. John|last=Timperley|accessdate=2018-01-07}}
• The first case of monkeypox in humans is identified in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.{{cite web|title=Monkeypox|url=https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/index.html|website=CDC|access-date=2017-10-15|date=2015-05-11|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171015113128/https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/index.html|archive-date=2017-10-15}}

• The GIM mechanism is predicted by Sheldon Glashow, John Iliopoulos and Luciano Maiani.{{cite journal|first1=S. L.|last1=Glashow|first2=J.|last2=Iliopoulos|first3=L.|last3=Maiani|year=1970|title=Weak Interactions with Lepton–Hadron Symmetry|journal=Physical Review D|volume=2|pages=1285–1292|url=http://prd.aps.org/pdf/PRD/v2/i7/p1285_1|doi=10.1103/PhysRevD.2.1285|bibcode=1970PhRvD...2.1285G|issue=7|access-date=2011-11-11|archive-date=2012-07-12|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120712140640/http://prd.aps.org/pdf/PRD/v2/i7/p1285_1|url-status=dead|url-access=subscription}}

• The minimal group paradigm is developed by Henri Tajfel.
• Studies in Animal and Human Behavior, Volume I is published by Konrad Lorenz.

• June 2 – The Cleddau Bridge collapses during construction in Wales, killing four and leading to the introduction of new standards for box girder bridges in the United Kingdom.{{cite book|author=Department of the Environment (Merrison Committee of Inquiry)|title=Inquiry into the Basis of Design and Method of Erection of Steel Box Girder Bridges|publisher=HMSO|location=London|year=1973}}{{cite news|title=How safe are our bridges?|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6929777.stm|work=BBC News Online|publisher=BBC|date=2007-08-03|access-date=2008-01-30}}

• June 19 – The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is signed into international law, providing a unified procedure for filing patent applications.

• Fields Prize in Mathematics – Alan Baker, Heisuke Hironaka, Sergei Novikov and John Griggs Thompson
• Nobel Prizes:
• Physics – Hannes Alfvén, Louis Néel
• Chemistry – Luis F. Leloir
• Medicine – Bernard Katz, Ulf von Euler, Julius Axelrod
• Turing Award – James H. Wilkinson

• March 27 – Eleanor Maguire, Irish-born neuropsychologist.
• August 1 – Elon Lindenstrauss, Israeli mathematician.
• September 3 – Stanislav Smirnov, Russian-born mathematician.

• January 5 – Max Born (b. 1882), German physicist and recipient of the 1954 Nobel Prize in physics.{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=iZtRAAAAIBAJ&pg=5297%2C1066126 |newspaper=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |location=(Pennsylvania, U.S.)|agency=Associated Press |title=Nobel prize winner dies |date=6 January 1970 |page=26 }}
• January 27 – Marietta Blau (b. 1894), Austrian physicist.{{cite book|first=Leopold E.|last=Halpen|chapter=Marietta Blau|editor-first1=Marelene F.|editor-last1=Rayner-Canham|editor-first2=Geoffrey|editor-last2=Rayner-Canham|title=A Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity|location=Montréal|publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press|year=1997|isbn=978-0-77351-642-7|page=203}}
• April 27 – Orii Hyōjirō (b. 1883), Japanese animal specimen collector.
• May 1 – Ralph Hartley (b. 1888), American electrical engineer.
• July 20 – Margaret Reed Lewis (b. 1881), American cell biologist.
• July 29 – Emanuel Miller (b. 1892), English child psychiatrist.
• August 1 – Otto Heinrich Warburg (b. 1883), German physiologist and winner of the 1931 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.{{cite book|author1=Roswitha Schmid|author2=Hans Adolf Krebs|title=Otto Warburg: Cell Physiologist, Biochemist, and Eccentric|publisher=Clarendon Press|year=1981|page=v}}
• September 22 – Vojtěch Jarník (b. 1897), Czech mathematician.

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Category:1970s in science